Warren has experience winning historic bond elections

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, February 11, 2012

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Midland ISD schools will begin on Aug. 27 and conclude on May 29, 2015, for the 2014-15 school year, with commencement on May 30.The MISD board of trustees unanimously approved the calendar at its meeting Monday night. less

Midland ISD schools will begin on Aug. 27 and conclude on May 29, 2015, for the 2014-15 school year, with commencement on May 30.The MISD board of trustees unanimously approved the calendar at its meeting ... more

Photo: Cindeka Nealy/Reporter-Telegram

Warren has experience winning historic bond elections

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If passed, Midland ISD’s $158 million bond initiative would be historical for Midland.

But, making history is something Ryder Warren has done before.

During Warren’s seven-year tenure as superintendent of Marble Falls ISD — a school district in the Texas Hill Country with more than 4,000 students — voters overwhelmingly approved a $62.3 million bond for improved academics and athletic facilities.

The bond, approved in November 2006, was the largest in the district’s history, and extremely unusual for Marble Falls, said Martin McClean, who was school board president when the bond passed.

In a previous Reporter-Telegram report, board member Karl Westerman said the bond was about twice the district’s annual budget of $33 million.

“It was definitely an issue people had to think a lot about, but we had the economy on our side,” McClean said of the town with a population of 6,047. “It was pre-recession. If you had waited two to three years to have that, the result might have been different.”

Warren’s success in passing a bond initiative in Marble Falls was one reason the MISD board hired him as superintendent in 2010, said MISD board President Jay Isaacs.

“When you look at any superintendent candidate, you want to see they have sufficient experience in a variety of areas, and bonds and building projects are one of them,” Isaacs said.

A visible need for additional classroom and athletic facilities made the bond package successful, said McClean, who served as a Burnet County judge for 32 years. The bond package included renovating and expanding facilities at the middle school, high school, elementary schools, and it helped acquire land for growth.

Because the bond helped improve test scores and maintain recognized and academically acceptable ratings from the Texas Education Agency each year, Warren had a good reputation in town, he said.

But, McClean said a bond’s success has little to do with the popularity of the superintendent; it’s about a community recognizing a need and addressing that.

In Marble Falls, a political action committee of about 30 people worked to pass the bond. They spent every night for about three months calling residents to educate them about the positive results passing a bond would yield, said campaign chairman Jerry Edwards, who runs Edwards Risk Management in Marble Falls.

“Superintendents will tend to favor bond elections, especially because they’re proposing them,” McClean said. “To be successful, you need the balance of others to be credible and withstand the scrutiny of the whole

district.”

Edwards, who served on the school board from 1972 to 1984, said he recruited parents, business owners and non-district employees to the committee based on their talents and diversity.

PAC members represented every part of the

community.

“For about two months, we all dedicated ourselves to passing the bond issue,” Edwards said.

Community involvement and education are crucial to the success of any bond, Edwards said.

“You have to get the people to understand this is not about building some empire; it’s about building something that can educate kids and the right environment for kids,” Edwards said.